


The Way Is Made of Water

by thelivingbird



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust - Philip Pullman
Genre: Edward Coulter (briefly), Gen, Verbal Abuse, it's gool ol fashioned mama drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelivingbird/pseuds/thelivingbird
Summary: Marisa's mother came to Brytain in the aftermath of Lyra' birth. Marisa came to Geneva in the aftermath of the scandal.
Relationships: Marisa Coulter & Madame Delamare
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The Way Is Made of Water

Her mother had been there when the tragic news broke. Marisa supposed it was Edward’s idea to have one of the staff ring her, or perhaps Edward himself. She could hear the honey in his voice as he implored her to come to London to comfort her grieving daughter. Since her marriage to Edward, the air between them had been free from the old tension that so regularly defined their interactions in Marisa’s adolescence and childhood, she still expected to receive only poison when her mother appeared at her bedside.

Instead, she felt the backside of her mother’s hand stroke her cheek as she pretended to sleep. The feel of the cool ring that Madame Delamare never removed even after a decade of no contact with Marisa’s father, gave her goosebumps.

“Ma petite fille,” Madame Delamare sighed, “You’re so young. You and your Edward will have another soon enough.”

The illusion of sleep broke when Marisa stopped breathing. She had braced herself for ridicule, for questions about what she did wrong that made the baby too weak to be born. It must have been something she ate, or involved her being too athletic, waiting months before properly slowing down. This support was a strange beast to be confronted with. Her mother’s lizard daemon padded over to the golden monkey curled up at the end of the bed. He did not make contact, but inspected the sight of the other daemon. The monkey could swat him away without exerting much strength, but like his human counterpart, he kept his head tucked away.

Madame Delamare turned her daughter’s chin to face her. Marisa opened her eyes to take in a look of such profound sympathy she thought her mother should receive some sort of recognition for such a performance. But Marisa kept her mouth shut. Rattled by the toll the experience had taken on her body and the constant suffocating comfort Edward showered on her, she had taken to silence. Better play the part everyone expected her to than risk revealing who she truly longed for, or worse, having her intense relief over the baby’s departure show on her face.

“I brought some creams. Same ones I used after I had you and Marcel. Helps lessen those ugly little marks on the body. What do you say, hm?” The corner of her mouth twitched up. At the more familiar tone returning to her mother’s voice, Marisa rubbed her face in the hand still left on her cheek.

Marisa’s mother stayed with the Coulters for no longer than ten days. Feeling unappreciated in his own efforts, Edward pleaded with her to stick around longer for everyone’s sake. Back on her feet, Marisa saw no need for this and her and her mother bid a polite goodbye. She thought her mother may have been proud to see Marisa maintain a stiff upper lip and not sulk in the aftermath of something uncontrollable.

With history lingering in the doorway, the Coulters attempts at a second go of things were to be put off for a later time. Edward echoed Marisa’s mother’s words that she was still young, and there was no need to rush things. Marisa was careful to make Edward feel loved as his moods would sour if he felt neglected for too long.

When the clash bang of the scandal finally made itself heard, Marisa failed to trace the source that revealed the truth to Edward. If she was being honest with herself, it very well could have been many a person. A high up figure in the Magisterium who had made it a point of interest in his career to keep an eye on Asriel, especially if the lord appeared to be concealing activity from the public. Or perhaps someone as inconsequential as gossiping staff member or a witness who remembered the image of a passionate young pair clasped together in the night, but recalled something about the look of them that stuck in their mind. Whoever it may have been, they were enjoying the spoils of their loose lips and watching the fallout from afar.

Marisa was held in Brytain until the ink on the judges’ papers was dry. Humiliated and out of breath, she hid in her dark and dirty home. The staff had long since been dismissed and she had yet to acquire a more trustworthy group.

It was not from a place of logic that she made the decision to smuggle herself across to the continent and go visit her mother. As false as she knew the expression she saw at her bedside months ago was, a part of her became hungry to see it again.

The golden monkey chattered softly to himself along the journey, but Marisa refused to indulge him. Measures were taken to make her appearance in her mother’s home as painless for her as possible. She arrived in the late evening when her mother would be ready to turn into bed. As she walked up the steps, she noted the house was entirely dark. Her monkey grumbled, chastising her for planning things so poorly. Before Marisa knocked, a maid was opening the door.

Her face blanched when she saw Marisa, “Pardon! I thought you were Madame Delamare.”

“My mother,” Marisa breathed, “I’m here for a visit. May I come in?”

“Oh? Well, yes, I suppose. Yes, come in.”

Marisa rolled her eyes at the mousy woman, expecting her to have a daemon to match, only finding a simple dog in its place. She handed her the travel bag. The creak of the old steps was the only sound in the house as the maid ran up to unpack Marisa’s things in the guest room.

Being faced with the home she spent the majority of her life in, Marisa was shocked to find a total absence of feeling. She could only assume it was a product of having her nerves overstimulated with recent events. The rooms looked mostly unchanged. The exception being a few photographs swapped in and out. If she had had the nerve to send word ahead, Marisa would have thought her mother left up the wedding photogram up on purpose. With that surprise, she began to wonder where her mother could be that she was out at such a late hour. Though she was sure she would be refused an answer to that question.

The golden monkey was sent ahead to run her a hot bath, get the smell of travel off of her. She made the mistake of allowing her muscles to relax. The sound of the door clicking open and closed followed by the unmistakable rustle and bump of a drunk climbing the stairs. Her mother pushed open the bathroom door only to hold herself in the threshold staring at Marisa sinking herself into the water.

“Oh.” And the door was shut as quickly as it opened.

Marisa leapt out and toweled herself off. She scooped the golden monkey into her arms as she tip-toed to the guest room. She overslept into the next morning. The sun high enough in the sky that it began shining directly into her eyes. The monkey brought her a robe, holding it up for her to slip her arms into before tightly knotting it at the front.

The smell of late breakfast made her stomach grumble. Down the stairs and to the left, Marisa saw her mother with her back to her. The lizard daemon sat on the table inspecting the morning paper. Madame Delamare sipped at her cappuccino before turning around to greet Marisa with a raised eyebrow. A turn of her hand offered her a chair.

Madame Delamare’s eyes watched her as her elbows locked straight and shoulders bunched up. Circling the table to her seat felt longer than the journey from London.

Her mother tutted, “No, not that one. Next to me.”

Marisa obeyed.

“Am I lucky enough to hear the reason you felt you could invite yourself into my home in the middle of the night?” Her voice retained that note of tenderness Marisa heard just a few months earlier.

The golden monkey placed himself on the back of Marisa’s chair. His tail curling and uncurling down the back.

“I planned to stay with you for a little while.” The words came out clunky and timid. Any speech she planned about to impress her mother with decided to absent itself from her mind.

Her mother looked just as disappointed in her as she did in herself for her lack of showmanship. “Any repayment I get for hosting you here? An explanation might be a good place to start, Marisa.”

Marisa took a breath. “I’m sure you’ve heard it reported over and over again.”

“Twisted beyond recognition, no doubt.”

“Yes, but, it’s hard to ask to recall it all now. It’s not as if I considered- He was- Just look at the photos of him! I was scared and I was alone and, and- I don’t want to, well, I hoped and hoped it was Edward’s. And now I can’t step outside my home without people’s assumptions and their ideas. Everything is _twisted_ as you said and- Things just need to settle down before I get back to work.” There was nothing endearing about her stammering. Her mother’s frown worsened until she broke her eyes away.

Madame Delamare’s fingers tapped the newspaper on the table. “I saw your photo in the paper the other day, of you in the dreadful dark courthouse wearing some bland little dress. I don’t know where on earth you got that from. And I thought to myself, I don’t know who this woman is. This _weak_ , sniffling _fool._ And now this stranger that confronted me in the paper is sitting in my home.”

Marisa leaned forward to put her hand on the paper and began to speak when the slap of her mother’s free hand ripped across her face. It was so sudden; Marisa didn’t register the pain until she slumped back into her chair. Her breathing became ragged as she tried to keep tears from pooling in her eyes. But the red hand print that was taking shape across her features demanded to be felt. Her throat tightened as her body betrayed her, face already becoming wet with tears. The golden monkey had fallen from his place behind her and folded into himself below her seat whimpering and shuddering.

“You _lied_ to me,” her voice was low, “When I gave you the chance to be truthful you regurgitate that pulp and nonsense you used on those vultures in Brytain.” She pulled a cigarette from the case she always kept on her and furiously lit it as if the little thing was the cause of her rage. Taking the first inhale she removed it from her lips to point it at her daughter. “You think I wouldn’t know. You think I don’t know when I _made_ you. The little girl who stashed away her tooth rotting sweets and treasures in her room thinking she had pulled the wool over my eyes. Thinking I didn’t know about that false bottom you installed in your dresser drawer. You think I wouldn’t recognize that little lying _brat_ grew up into a common slut that slinks around the dark with that disgusting vile man!”

Marisa drew further into herself taking the lashing.

“I’m willing to bet you thought you were in love with him, sweet girl. Naïve girl. You thought you were experiencing something wholly unique. Many have walked where you have, but at least they completed their journeys in one piece. I hold no ill will against you that you had an affair, nor going so far as having your lover’s child. Plenty have passed off another man’s baby as their husband’s. But your choice of man… _Stupid girl!_ That child, my granddaughter,” she nearly gagged at her own words, “will always be more his than yours. Will bear his name. And when people speak about her mother, they will know she is and was nothing but a whore. You took everything I gave you… you were so close! You were the wife of a powerful respected man and look what you did with it. That man will laugh at you, brag about what he’s done to you, spill all the lurid details about your body, say you threw it at him, and he will move on as if you were nothing. My daughter! Nothing! For the rest of your life, no one will say a word about you without this disaster being mentioned as well. My family tainted with the stain of you!”

They continued to sit there in silence while Madame Delamare attempted to cool her passionate rage by focusing herself on finishing her cigarette. When she was done, she stubbed it out on the ash tray set by her drink.

She looked back up at her daughter with that fantastic expression of false sympathy. “Despite everything, some ridiculous part of me still believes you have some grit left in you. I’m sure you’ll cobble together some sort of life for yourself. I assume you realize this won’t be happening here.” She handed Marisa a piece of the paper. “There’s a zeppelin that can return you to London before nightfall.”

Marisa looked at her watch. She would need to pack quickly to make it on time.

Her mother remained unmoved. Her daemon paid no attention to the golden monkey covering his face with his hands. Marisa stood on weak knees and began walking away. Unable to leave her daemon in front of her mother she was forced to wait for him to collect himself and follow her. He crawled out from his spot and watched Marisa with wide eyes waiting for her to make a move against him that never came.

Instead of an overwhelming storm Marisa would have expected inside her head at the time, everything went quiet. She could only think about the cool feeling of the ring her mother never removed.


End file.
